Lancia in the Automobile Museum Mulhouse

The famous Automobile Museum Mulhouse, France, with its collection originally founded by the Schlumpf brothers is of course mostly about Bugatti.

However, it covers also a wide range of cars and makes:
• The early years of motoring: Benz, Panhard&Levassor, De Dion Bouton to name just a few.
• The best of touring cars from around 1900 to 1940: Hispano Suiza, Bugatti, Rolls Royce, Bentley, Isotta Fraschini, Voisin, Farman, Mercedes, Maybach and Horch et al.
• Prewar competition cars: High density of Bugatti racing cars and their rivals Mercedes and Maserati
• 50’s and 60’s racing cars such as Ferrari, Gordini, Maserati, Lotus…

Automobile Museum Mulhouse: Automobiles Biotop?

Part of this high-level collection are 3 Lancia models: a very early model Lancia Epsilon, a Lambda 7th series Torpedo and a 1st series Dilambda open-tourer.

The Lancia Epsilon dates from 1912. It has a 4 liter 4 cylinder engine. It is presented in a row of cars from this period just before WW1. Probably it was rebodied again in the ‘20s as an open tourer. Certainly it is not the most loved model in this museum. Museums nowadays tend to leave the car in its state when being taken off the road. If possible only conservatory measures being taken. So maybe the case here?

The green Lambda Torpedo (1927) and the red Dilambda (1930) would please any Lancia collector. However, these enthusiasts would probably show more loving care for them.

Automobile Museum Mulhouse: Minerva Typ AC aus dem Jahr 1926

The context these two Lancias are presented within is rather interesting. On the right is a very, very nice Minerva tourer from the 1920’s with a striking colour combination of grey and burgundy wings, surely an extraordinary specimen of this Belgian marque of outstanding quality and mechanical excellence with its sleeve-valve engine. On the left of the two Lancias a big Mercedes 400 model with a somewhat “antique” open top body which was probably not cutting edge at its time.

Any Lancia enthusiast will ask what the museum curators want to tell us about Lancia within this context. All three Lancias don’t seem to be loved models here. The average visitor will probably just walk by nodding at the cars as just some more cars from the 1920’s.

So is there any Lancia-enthusiast out there who wants to send some material to the museum telling them about the outstanding qualities of these Lancia models, a kind of “Christmas present for Schlumpf”? As a start we suggest to give them a list of Lancia-features in all the classic car journals in 2009 (see our “Pressespiegel”). It will probably beat the Bugatti-public-relations quota for 2009!